


Homestuck One Shots

by WindyWordz



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Karkat Vantas - Freeform, POV Dave Strider, POV Karkat Vantas, dave strider - Freeform, john egbert - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-11 23:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2086980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WindyWordz/pseuds/WindyWordz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a basic collection of Homestuck one-shots that i've written.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

            A call. Your iPhone vibrating loudly on the desk as the theme for Ghost Busters plays. You could only wonder who _that_ could be as your hand flails aimlessly until it lands on the obnoxious item, absently picking up and holding it to your ear. 

            "Hello..?" Your voice is groggy with sleep as you answered, eyes still shut in a stubborn attempt at believing this was still a dream.

            "Dave!" Came the cheerful reply from the other end, loud and very much real, "Rise and shine, dude! It's so late man you need to wake up." Naturally it was John, how could you expect anything less? Eyes blinking tiredly at the other's words, you pull your phone away enough to look at the screen, the little colon between the 09 and 27 blinking in and out ceaselessly. 

            "Dude it's barely nine-thirty. You know I don't get up until at least noon-thirty, even on a good day." You sigh, fingers rubbing weakly at your tired eyes.

            "I know, I know! I just really needed to talk to you about something," you could practically hear him biting his lower lip with his slightly over-sized front teeth. His blue eyes shifting to the side even though he was on the phone and not directly talking to you. The image made the corner of your lip twitch towards a smile.

            "Well, seeing as my ticket to dreamland just expired, my schedule has been freed wide open. Lay it on me bro," you struggle to sit up, still half asleep as you swing your legs over the side of the bed and sit there, slouched over yourself. One arm rests across your thigh as you continue holding the slim black device to your ear.

            "Dave, I think I like Karkat." Your heart practically stops at the words, pulling the phone away to look at it with bewilderment before realizing that the boy on the other end can't see your face. 

            "Dude, seriously? You're not trying to prank me before I get my morning coffee again are you? Because bro, I can not handle this kind of shit in the morning and-" he cuts you off before you can start monologuing in metaphors.

            "Yes Dave, I'm serious!" A pause, "I-I think I have for a while I just- I didn't want to believe it, I guess?" Another pause. This time you think he's waiting for you to respond and when you don't, he keeps talking. While he’s dancing in circles around what he’s really trying to say, you allow yourself to process what he’s just admitted. To be quite honest, you are surprisingly unsurprised. You knew John was spending more time with Karkat over the past few months, even going as far as to give you an excuse not to hang out just so he could go to some last-minute thing the short-tempered boy had invited him to. You would almost feel offended if it weren’t for the fact that Striders don’t get offended and you still have a major crush on the naïve boy, which unfortunately for you, caused you to forgive him more often than not and brush it off. You suddenly realize that John’s stopped needlessly blabbering and is trying to get your attention.

            “Dave. Daaaave. Earth to cool kid, come in Strider,” You can hear the annoyance edging his voice, probably for ignoring his whole useless ranting.

            “Ten-four Egbert, this is Strider, over.” A laugh, bubbly and more high-pitched than the boy on the other end would ever care to admit.

            “I’m trying to get your advice on how I should approach Karkat and you’re playing Astronaut.”

            “What better place to see all your beauty than from space?” He huffs and you can tell he thinks you’re joking, as usual. You never did tell him how you truly felt but hey, Striders don’t confess. They get confessed to, like the greaser slicks and popular jocks at school and oh shit he’s talking to you again.

            “-alk over and see him, what do you think? Dave, are you listening?”

            “Yeah, bro, I’m all for it,“ you hadn’t heard a word he’d said, “I’m behind you one hundred percent. I am behind you like Sam behind Mr. Frodo as they trek through Mordor to destroy the one ri-“ He cuts you off again.

            “Yeah, yeah, whatever Dave. But thanks; I’ll let you know how it goes then!” He quickly says good-bye and hangs up, like he was in a rush. Not that you would know since you weren’t even listening to him half the time he’d bee talking to you. With a heavy sigh, you toss you phone back on your desk and settle back against the mattress, leaving the sheets discarded and crumpled at the foot of your bed as your brain slowly sinks back into sleep.

            Several hours later and into the afternoon, your phone vibrates again, pulsating three times to let you know you have a message, dragging you out of sleep yet again. This time you manage to grab the black device without too much useless floundering and unlock your phone with your eyes still closed. It’s a picture from John. The useless dweeb is holding the camera for a picture while he has his free hand intertwined with Karkat’s and holding them up. His buck-toothed grin looks twice it’s normal size next to Karkat’s disgruntled expression, despite the fact his face seems to be tinged a nice shade of over-ripe peach. _We’re official!! :D_ Is the message underneath and you shake your head with a small smile, locking your phone once again as you roll out of bed to go shower.


	2. davekat angsty one shot

A sudden itch washed over his skin, crawling down his shoulders and over his arms, setting a tingle in his fingertips which reflexively kneaded the blanket on the human sleep slab where he lay. It was one of the decorations in his practically bare respite block on the meteor besides his husktop, the desk with which it rested on, and his dresser containing many articles of clothing that matched the ones he was currently wearing to a hypothetical T. None of this included the absolutely massive amount of blankets he had folded and piled in the very corner of his room, but that’s besides the point.

His silver eyes, now beginning to speckle with crimson as the weeks passed, trailed over to the drawer in his desk under furrowed brows, which only seemed to deepen as he stared at the storage unit with distaste. As if that would burn the contents so that he wouldn’t have to feel the itch under his skin anymore; the one that could only be scratched by something sharp and harsh and curved.

After several moments of useless glaring, he finally sighed in defeat, rolling out of the strangely comfortable bed and walking the few feet to the drawer; his block was actually a little smaller than the one he’d had back on Alternia but for some reason, that didn’t really bother him. A muffled grinding noise of wood on wood seemed to echo throughout the empty space, the metallic object inside thunking slightly against the inner walls of the storage unit. He grimaced as the curved blade somehow seemed to glint off some kind of light even though the room was drenched in blackness, the way the young troll liked it.

Karkat had long abandoned this particular sickle to the drawer so that he wouldn’t be able to use it for the sole purpose he had made it unless he was alone in this room, which he currently was. He was completely alone seeing as everyone else seemed to have their fucking faces shoved in each other as they attempt to see who can swallow who’s face faster in a contest of sloppy make-outs. He grimaced, a mute snarl pulling at his lips and he practically ripped his shirt off over his head, his grey hand grabbing at the hand of the tool he once used to fight and survive and protect. Now it was his punishment, his torture.

He pressed the inside of the blade where the edge was sharpest to the already heavily marred skin, biting his teeth together as he stilled his resolve and twisted. The sickle sliced through his skin easily and he let out a breathy hiss which turned into a sigh of relief as he watched his sickly colored blood spring up in tiny, unconnected beads. He hadn’t gone very deep; the first cut of the session usually isn’t but he quickly changes that as he brings the blade back to his skin again. Line after line is carved into his skin deeper and deeper. The wounds go from beading to welling to dripping continuously down his flesh, tracing over the back of his hand and the creases of his fingers, gathering at the tips and hovering there, poised to fall.

He put down the weapon and grabbed a blood-stained towel from deeper within the drawer, catching the droplets before they could fall and stain the pale carpet below him with evidence of his activities. The color seeped into the already red-stained material, spreading in blotches as slow as a late night breeze would brush across the grass on his old lawnring. The pain was already ebbing away, leaving only a stinging residue in the hollows of each slice as Karkat cleansed and bandaged them.

He sighed when done, staring down at the expertly wrapped gauze around his forearm for several moments before placing all of his materials back inside the drawer. There was no sound after he closed the drawer, pushing it’s dark contents back into their hiding place. The room was empty, the darkness deep and his keen ears made white noise in the silence that was almost deafening. Without even thinking, he slipped his shirt back on and walked back over to the door, barely opening enough to allow himself to slide through before closing it as gently as possible. He stood there in the hallway a moment, tired eyes staring blankly at the ground above large bags that he would do anything to make disappear. He was so lost that he didn’t even hear another set of foot steps approaching from his left, the human’s end of the hallway.

“Yo, Karkalicious, what’s happening bro?” Of course it was Dave, when was he ever in the right place at the right time? Never, because being the Knight of Time gave him no insight as to when that was, which Karkat would assume was not now. His brows slid themselves back into the grooves above his eyes as his mouth twisted into a half-hearted scowl.

“What’s going to happen is my foot is going to go up your human waste chute in a matter of point three five seconds the next time you use that absolutely ridiculous and absurd nickname on me again,” He huffs at the end, his shoulders slouching down more than usual as his eyes raked over the other’s stoic expression, if you could even call it that.

Dave just ‘tch’s before continuing, “Well, I suppose that’s one way to go about it.” He slides his hands into the pockets of his pants that he had Kanaya sew into them after he’d realized they’d been left out from his snuggle pajama design.

“Is there any particular reason you are bothering me from my obviously way more important activities with your stupid sarcasm and equally stupid feministic shade-adorned face?” He starts to get nervous that the other is going to ask him to brawl, his ashen digits finding their way to the bandaged wounds through his sleeve, fingertips moving against the material absently.

The blonde shrugged, “Yes because staring vacantly at the linoleum floor while holding onto your doorknob is clearly more important than anything I could possibly have to do.” His eyes catch the movement of the smaller’s hand and some little red flag goes up in his head, followed by another as he noted the unusually deep slouch in his shoulders and how dark the bags under his eyes were. Had they always been that black? They were like dark whirlpools of exhaustion threatening to swallow his eyes whole, which already looked sunken and duller than what Dave would ever consider normal, even for a troll. “Dude, are you alright?”

“For the metaphorical record, everything I do is infinitely more important and meaningful than whatever your rotten think pan could ever hope to come up with. And I’m fucking fine, Strider. Why don’t you go back to snogging your insane, blind girlfriend and leave me alone like everyone else?” With that, he turned to walk away, only to be stopped by something grabbing onto him, wrapping around his bandaged arm where some of the deepest wounds were, causing him to whimper loudly involuntarily.

“Dude, TZ and I don’t even date anymore, where the hell have you been. And also, what the fuck was that just now?” Dave’s words were calm, or he at least hoped they sounded calm after his heart rate spiked for a second at the pained sound from the other. Karkat tried to wrench his arm from the other’s grasp, only to find it locked tight.

“Dave, I swear to whatever unmerciful messiahs are watching over and entertaining themselves with my pathetic excuse for an existence that if you do not let go right now, I will bite your fingers off one by one and spit them into Can Town Hall,” he attempts to growl, but his voice cracks and he has to swallow once before he succeeds in making the intended noise. Dave’s resolve only hardened as he continued to hold on to the small troll.

“No, bro, seriously, what is going on with you. Hardly anyone has seen you for days at a time, let alone long enough to actually ask where the hell you’ve been or what you’ve been doing. You can’t honestly expect me to believe you were doing some super important shit that you’ve basically abandoned the rest of us-” Karkat cuts him off, anger flaring in his stomach as he whips around to face the taller boy, teeth bared.

“Don’t fucking talk to me about abandoning people! I lead an entire team to victory only to have it stolen from us by your god damn mistakes, where we were forced into hiding on this god-forsaken hunk of junk rock, only to have three of the highest blood castes go into psycho-murder mode and kill just about everyone but three of us. Not to mention that two of those psychos are now also dead and one is hiding in the vents, leaving his abandoned moirail to his own destructive devices.” His anger bubbled to a boil, erupting through his words at the human that still had his hand clasped around his forearm, eyes shooting daggers with every word.

“Now I have to watch Kanaya make big, lovey, goo-goo eyes at your usually drunken ecto-sister and Terezi thoroughly memorize the taste of the inside of your mouth while I wander around by myself because everyone is clearly too absorbed in their little red quadrants to give a damn about me. What about everything I did, all the shit I’ve been through? No one gives a flying bulgefuck about that, now do they? No, of course not! It’s not like Karkat has any feelings guys, he’s just a god damn mutant who was never supposed to exist and we all just realized it now. Why don’t we just ignore him until he… he finally…” His words slowly died, trailing off as he let his head fall to his chest, his arm limp in the Strider’s grasp, dull teeth pulling in his bottom lip.

The outburst kind of shocked Dave, despite the Vantas having them all the time. He guessed it had just been a while since he’d heard one. However, the other’s words actually pricked a bit of concern in his chest as the other slowly quieted down and trailed off; he’d never done that during any of his rants before, at least as far as Dave knew. Another red flag stuck itself in the dirt as the blond realized what the other had said just a moment ago in his little spiel. He pulled the other closer to him despite his sudden cry of what sounded like pain.

“Karkat, what the hell do you mean ‘destructive devices’? What the hell have you been doing?” The smaller boy only struggled to get out of the Strider’s grasp, trying this way and that to escape, small cries darting past his lips as the material under Dave’s hand shifted. The other eventually gave up, releasing his hold on the troll, who fell backwards in surprise. With a quick step, Dave caught him and gently lowered him down to the ground where Karkat sat, unmoving. His dark bangs had grown long as the rest of his hair had gotten shaggy, casting a dark shadow over his face from the dim light in the hall. But even the piss-poor lighting couldn’t hide the little beads of red-tinged tears the were building up on the troll’s lower lids.

Dave knelt down in front of him with both knees, brushing aside the other’s bangs so he could get a clear look at his face. Yellow-ringed eyes were cast to the side, trying to blink away the tears to no avail, a small hiccup entering his body. Dave could almost feel his heart break, and after having it littered with holes once already, he was pretty sure he knew what that felt like. His next words were unusually soft; if Bro had ever heard anything like this come out of his mouth, it was a strife on the roof and no Chinese for a month.

“Karkat, man, I’m really sorry. I,” he hesitated for a split second, another penalty Bro would not have let stand. “I had no idea we were causing you this much pain, none of us did, I just-” His eyes trailed down the troll’s smooth, grey face as a tear spilled over the edge of the other’s eye, “What have you been doing all this time?” No answer. Dave let the other’s bangs fall back into place but his hand stayed on his grey cheek, thumbing away the tears the troll produced. “Vantas, come on man. Talk to me. We’re bros, aren’t we? That hasn’t changed.” Still no answer and Dave’s heart sunk into his stomach. “Karkat, please, say something.”

“I have nothing to say to you, Strider,” was the reply, “Just fucking leave me alone already.”

“Right, like I’m going to do that kind of thing after that outburst.” He stood up, his hands finding their way under the troll’s armpits and lifting him up to gently set him on his feet, who huffed and swatted the other boy’s hands away.

“Look at that, I’m now standing up like I was before you decided to forcefully stop me from going back to the still more important than you business I had to attend. Are you quite pleased with yourself you obsolete, sloppy piece of hoofbeast nasal mucus?” Karkat’s scowl deepened as he looked back up at Dave, cheeks still retaining traces of a red flush, his pointed ears pinned to the side of his head and down as if he were a wounded animal.

“Well, I wouldn’t have had to pick you up if you hadn’t flipped out when I grabbed you. What the hell was up with that, man?” His peered down into the troll’s face, leaning in so they were only several inches apart. Karkat could feel fear trickle into his chest as he absently scratched at his arms yet again, fingers digging into the fabric but not his nails as he kept eye contact with the Strider.

“What was up is your skin-blotched and upturned nose, which is sniffing around in my god damn business like Terezi in your fucking cape when you’re doing god knows what in that closet next to can town, in which you produce noises that I can only fathom are as disgusting lewd and obscene as the actions that are causing them because what the hell else would matesprites be doing in a god damn closet?”

“Yo, I already told you we aren’t together anymore,” the blond replied a he grit his teeth in annoyance at the other’s blatant disregard in this fact, “Stop avoiding the question.”

“What the hell question would that be, Dave?”

“What did you mean earlier by ‘destructive devices’?”

A twitch, grey fingers seeming to increase in ferocity as they attacked his arm, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Karkat, don’t even try and play dumb with me yo, you just said it in your little over-dramatic monologue before you had a bigger fit than usual,” he slapped the moving hand away from the arm currently being attacked, “and will you stop fucking doing that? You’re gunna hurt yourself!”

“And why the ever loving fuck would you care? The only reason you’re even here now is because you need someone to comfort you after breaking up with the old love of my life who isn’t drunk or all over said drunk.” The fear he felt turned into anger and he balled his hands into fists, “What right do you have to try and console me when that’s clearly all you want from everyone else; to be constantly comforted about every insecurity you have about your fucking eye color and your raps and your totally uncool and unironic self? It’s disgusting Dave and I am not going to deal with it! Not now, not ever!” His fist connected to the human’s chest, actually giving enough force to make him slam into the wall.

Dave’s mouth dropped open as he felt the air knocked out of him, on hand reflexively bring itself to the area of injury as he bowed over, mouth opening and closing a few times before he remembered how to take in air. His head was spinning from connecting with the wall behind him and his vision danced as he blinked to clear it. Karkat stared wide-eyed at the bent over boy in front of him, hand still in the air, fingers now splayed openly. His brain was creaming at him to run but his feet were rooted to the chilled ground, eyes watching as the blond in front of him struggled to regain his breathing.

“I, shit Dave. I didn’t mean- I just-” He was cut off by a hand wrapping itself around the collar of his shirt and his own back being pinned to wall opposite of Dave’s. It was meant to be forceful or to cause injury, just to hold Karkat in place as Dave leaned in, his face barely a hairsbreadth away from the terrified one below him.

“No, you didn’t mean to, you just wanted to take out your anger on something other than yourself for once. I get it, I’ve been there too. I know what you’ve done so much better than anyone else because, even though it definitely wasn’t for the same reasons, it was still the same punishment I gave myself.” He was so close that the troll could almost swear he could see the outline of the other’s eyes behind his dark and reflective shades in the poorly lit hallway. “But is that really a reason to lock yourself away for so long that most of us actually went out looking for you, even Terezi? We didn’t know whether you were hurt or lost or some other stupid shit you’d gotten yourself into. We all thought- I thought…” His words trailed off as he turned his head away from Karkat’s face and stepped back, his grip loosening around the other’s shirt before his hands fell to his sides.

Blinking back tears that had reformed from shock and guilt, the troll hesitated before reaching out, two fingers latching onto the sleeve of Dave’s wrist. The red material hardly crinkled under his light grip but it was enough to turn Dave’s head back to him. He swallowed hard, trying to force down whatever emotion was trying to choke him up on his next words.

“I’m sorry. No, I really am,” he said when the Strider opened his mouth to argue, “I wasn’t thinking and I let my emotions take control of my actions. I fucking punched you so hard you couldn’t breathe, Dave. I got so caught up in my own self-loathing and my anger that I cut myself off from the people who could have been helping me and now I just…” He held up his arms, staring down at them with harsh scrutiny before he threw them back down in disgust and sighed. Dave watched him for a moment before he held out his arms in an open gesture, rewarding him with a strange look from the troll.

“Come on dude,” Dave said, his voice back to being stoic and yet tinged with sass, “Give me a fucking hug.”

“Ex-fucking-cuse me?” An obsidian brow rose above is deeply set resting place to arch above Karkat’s eye.

“I’m pretty sure you heard me unless you call them something else like ‘physically complicating quadrant embrace’ or some dumb shit like that. Who the fuck would ever call it something as dumb as that?”

Now his eyes rolled before he stepped towards the human, “Whatever, why do I even care anymore?” His heavily-sleeved arms wrapped tentatively around the muscle-bound waist of Dave and gave an experimental squeeze. When he was met with the other’s arms wrapping around him and himself being pressed into a surprisingly soft and warm embrace, he wasted no time in digging his fingers into the other’s shirt under his cape, his own freckled nose burying itself into Dave’s shoulder, followed by the rest of his face. It was pretty nice, actually, just being held and warm. Karkat had a feeling he was going to be asking for way more of these hugs from the Strider from now on. After what seemed like forever, not that Karkat really minded, they released their holds on each other and Dave’s hand founds it’s way to the back of his neck.

“You cool now, bro?”

The troll paused and then slowly nodded, “Yeah, actually.” His eyes flashed back up to Dave, “Now what?”

“Now, we go back to common room before Rose finds us and we both get a drunken lecture and psychological examination and Kanaya has to intervene by dragging her away to her room to pass out.” Karkat actually guffawed at the reply, slapping a hand over his mouth to silence the sound, causing Dave’s mouth to twist into a small grin. A smaller one slipped over the troll’s mouth before he started walking down the hallway towards the transportalizer.

“Fine, come on then your fucking highness.”

“With pleasure, my liege.”


End file.
